


Here I Lay, Just Like Always

by boltschick2612



Series: Shattered [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, New York Rangers, POV First Person, Suicidal Thoughts, Tampa Bay Lightning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boltschick2612/pseuds/boltschick2612
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your mind can concoct anything, if you want it bad enough.The connection shared by lovers is something not of this world...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here I Lay, Just Like Always

**Author's Note:**

> Let's just pretend that Caroline and the Little Lecavaliers are off visiting family, shall we?  
> Title, Lyrics, and entire idea for this fic came from the Deftones song "Passenger". Every time I hear this song , I can't help but picture someone driving down an abandoned road with an other worldly passenger in tow. The idea evolved until I was obsessed with somehow using it in one of my fics. I finally did it, integrating some of the song lyrics into the story. Not true.

Here I lay, still and breathless. Just like always. My mind is running, won't let me sleep. That's usually the way it is, but tonight it's worse. I always miss him, but it's nights like tonight, when I'm all alone, that the loneliness is stabbing. The need to get up, move, do  _something_  permeates through every muscle, every fiber of my being. I hear the rain pounding on the window, the sound deafening. I remember nights like this when Brad and I would lay in bed, listening to the rain beat on the roof. My finger twitches, then my whole hand. It's as if the muscles are sending a signal to my brain that the rest of me didn't manage to get. A signal to get up and leave this empty, cold bed.  
The rest of my body finally gets the message, and before I know it, I'm up and getting dressed. I walk...almost run, really, through the house on my way to the front door. As I grab my keys off the key hook, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror in the hall. My eyes are dark and possessed, haunted. Haunted by  _him_...the absence of him. It's been many years that we've been apart, but the hurt never fades. It only grows until it forces me out of my bed on a cold, rainy night. It can't stand to look at my own empty eyes any longer and I throw open the front door and race for my car, rain stinging my skin, feeling like a thousand tiny needles.

 As I slide into the front seat of my car, something inside me breaks, and I know I must get away from here, from anything reminding me of my life, if only for a few hours. I throw the car in reverse and speed out of my driveway. I don't know where I'm going, but something is just pulling me away....away from here. I reach up and turn the rearview mirror sideways....who cares what's behind? The only sound I hear is my tires grip the road, and my mind goes back to Brad. Sometimes I really wish that he knew the hell I was going through, but I would never wish that on anyone, especially not someone I love. I almost swerve off the road when a voice comes from my passenger seat.

 "Roll the windows down, the cool night air is curious. Let the whole world look in, who cares who sees anything?"

My head snaps to look in the direction of the voice. Brad Richards. 

It's impossibly hard to keep my eyes focused on the road while staring at the man in the seat of my car. The man who can  _not_  possibly be in my car. There is no way....he's in New York right now. I just talked to him earlier, he was on his way home from a game. I shut my eyes hard and open them again. Still there.

 I finally manage to squeek out a few meager words. "Brad...what?"

 Brad....not Brad...Brad is not here...looks forward at the road and lets out a small laugh. That laugh sends shivers up my spine.

 "Your mind can concoct anything, if you want it bad enough."

 And there was my answer. The loneliness had finally consumed me until it was all I became, my mind knew nothing else.

 "Where were you going, Vinny?"

 I don't answer, the need to drive faster, drive away from everything, was coursing through my veins. Except I can't drive away from the loneliness, it's sitting right here in the front seat of my car, manifesting itself as.....

 What was this? A vision? A hallucination induced by a nervous breakdown?

 "Where were you going, Vinny?"

 "I...I don't know," I sheepishly stammer.

 "You do." His voice is flat, but all knowing as it escapes him, and as soon as he said the words, I realized I did know. I knew all along where I was going. Away from here....away from his life.

 "You can't do that, you know you can't. One of us has to make it." The weight of his statement steals my breath and I feel as if I've been kicked in the chest.

  _One of us has to make it._

 Survive. One of us has to survive.

 As I speed past the lake, the one that I didn't even realize that I had been planning on driving my car into, all I could think of were Brad's words and what they meant.

 "It's not too late, Vinny. I'm not gone yet."

 I steal one more look at the figure in my passenger's seat and almost completely lose it. I don't know where Brad is, but I know he's in trouble and I have to go to him. I can't be selfish. I can't.....

 I finally roll these misty windows down to catch my breath and collect my thoughts, and when I look back at my passenger seat again.....

He's gone.

I race home with more speed and conviction than when I left, and my mind is reeling as I sprint up the driveway.....

What happened to Brad in between the time I talked to him and now? Who do I even call? What do I even do? As I push inside my house, past the door, a thought occurs to me. Call Torts.

My fingers seek out the digits on the phone, almost as if they were doing it on their own, my brain not connecting with the rest of my body. The phone rings twice before being replaced by the voice of my old, and Brad's new, coach.

 "John...sorry about the hour...."

My voice sounds as if it's coming from somewhere else. I feel a cool breeze on the back of my neck and a voice, not John's, whispers into my ear.

" _It's not too late, Vinny. I'_ _m not gone yet."_

A more human voice flows out of the phone I forgot I was holding. "It's alright, Vinny. I was just about to call you, actually...."

My whole body goes numb and my mind reels as his next words wash over me.

"Brad's been in an accident...."


End file.
